On Gratitude
by Don Hall
Gratitude, like whiskey or cheese, is best taken in gulps and bites. It’s a state of mind that defies logic and rides shotgun on the chaotic journey we call life. The ungrateful are everywhere—slumped over their steering wheels, flipping the bird at the universe, blind to the fact that the sun came up this morning and they didn’t wake up dead. Gratitude, on the other hand, is a wild, unhinged acknowledgment of the absurd luck it takes to simply exist.
The act of being grateful, truly grateful, is not some sanitized Hallmark sentiment or a warm, fuzzy glow you get from a $12 yoga class. No, it’s a fistfight with reality. It’s staring down the barrel of everything that’s gone wrong and saying, “I’m still here, damn it, and I’ve got the scars to prove it.” Gratitude is survival. It’s the raw, visceral realization that the universe didn’t owe you anything but somehow threw you a bone anyway.
Let’s not romanticize it. Life is a violent, unpredictable beast. It will gut-punch you at the worst possible moment and laugh while you struggle to breathe. Gratitude, then, is not about ignoring the beast. It’s about grabbing it by the horns and shouting, “Thank you for the ride!” Even when it drags you through the mud. Especially then.
Consider the strange alchemy of human existence. Think of all the cosmic accidents and evolutionary glitches that had to happen just so you could sit here reading these words. Millions of years of chaos, war, disease, and bad decisions—all leading to you. You’re the punchline of the greatest cosmic joke ever told, and if that doesn’t fill you with a weird, manic gratitude, you’re not paying attention.
But gratitude isn’t just about the big, existential stuff. It’s also in the details—the smell of gasoline on a cold morning, the sting of whiskey after a long day, the way the world looks at 4:00am when you’re too wired to sleep. These small, fleeting moments are the breadcrumbs that lead us back to the raw, beating heart of life. They’re reminders that even in the chaos, there’s something worth savoring.
Of course, there’s a dark side to gratitude. It’s easy to overdose, to let it turn into complacency. Too much gratitude and you start sounding like one of those smiling zombies who think a gratitude journal will solve all their problems. But real gratitude isn’t about avoiding the darkness; it’s about finding the light in spite of it. It’s about laughing in the face of disaster, flipping off the void, and saying, “Thank you, you bastard, for giving me something worth fighting for.”
So raise a glass to gratitude. Not the saccharine, sanitized version sold on greeting cards, but the raw, untamed gratitude that comes from living life on the edge. It’s a reckless, defiant kind of love—for the chaos, for the struggle, for the absurd beauty of it all. Embrace it. Revel in it. And for God’s sake, don’t let it turn you soft.
Life doesn’t owe you a damn thing, but sometimes it throws you a bone. Take it. Appreciate it. And then charge forward like a lunatic into the chaos, grateful for every wild, messy second.
